“Why do you call him that?”
“I grant he’s gentle-born, but you can see he’s of a violent, ruthless nature. Obviously he led the party that delivered Haran-din from the lazar house——”
Miranda gave me a covert glance. “Are you going to turn him in?”
“You know I can’t, even if I wished to. Haran-din was my father’s client and Mustapha Sheik his friend. But I probably was mistaken in one thing I told you about him.” Saul’s voice grew somber. “He’ll probably not sell you. He’ll keep you a few years for his own plaything, and then sell you for a field worker. That will be the end.”
I had heard the talk unmoved, contemptuous, not really trying to understand. My attitude was that they knew I was listening, although of course they did not. Then I saw what shook me more than I wanted to confess. As Saul turned away, his eyes brimmed with tears.
A moment later Miranda was kneeling before Simon ben Reuben, her eyes wide but dry. Christian children in Venice were rarely taught to kneel to their parents or to anyone except princes or priests; I thought she was observing a Jewish custom. The patriarch raised her up, kissed her between the eyes, and spoke to her in his low, old, yet deep, rich voice.
“I wish I could set you free and adopt you into my nation, but that’s beyond my power. But I’ll entreat Jehovah to guard your ways, and I’ll give you what we call a mezusah, a little gold shell containing our God’s promises to us, which we hang on our doorpost. Wear it on a cord over your heart. It’s not a good-luck charm or a talisman of any sort. It’s only a symbol of my own faith, wherewith I bless you. For I’ve learned to love you, my child. And to whatever faith that has brought you to this pass, I know that you’ll be true.”
CHAPTER 5
THE CHALLENGE
In a moment I had the slave girl stowed aboard our gondola. She was my property now, by the law of Venice; my power over her was virtually as complete as a farmer over his oxen; the clothes in a box she carried were as much mine as those on her back. But I wanted something more than Venetian law standing behind a parchment given me by an Arab leper to attest my ownership. The fact was, which I was most anxious to conceal both from her and from Mustapha Dey, I could not yet believe in it.
Believing a thing and believing in a thing are two different things. The first could be a mere cold receptivity of mind, while the second was an activating force. It came to me that I would have trouble looking on any human being as my sheer chattel, and there was something about Miranda that defeated the attempt. Although I disliked and in some fashion dreaded the inquiry, I began to seek the reason.
It lay partly in her appearance. She did not have any of the familiar aspects of a slave. The state of slavery is the most abject in all the world—a free beggar’s is kingly in comparison, a chained beast’s is higher, because he doesn’t know the meaning of the word. I was used to seeing it manifested in various forms. New-caught slaves from the outlands were usually wild-eyed and defiant or dazed with shock or in terror dreadful to see. Well-fed, well-clothed house slaves imitated their masters and even outdid them in arrogant manners. Most of the girls on sale for the usual use had the manner of young whores—this well-known fact applied to virgins as young as twelve. Only partly was it by the instruction of the merchants. They had perceived beforehand, during the dressing and grooming period, that they were in deadly competition with one another to attract rich buyers.
Miranda gave none of these signs. There was no strain in her face, and only what seemed an echo of sorrow. She was watching the scenes on the bank, and her passiveness did not suggest inertness so much as poise. Most slave girls smile too brightly, flash their eyes too much. She talked to Mustapha gravely, her face lighting sometimes. Once she laughed gaily at one of his jokes, but she was not trying to make any sort of impression on either of us. I felt that she was fully aware of her beauty—more so than I, perhaps—and that awareness, to the degree of using it in her need, had affected the thing itself—made it more quiet and more telling. Perhaps I could not doubt it any more. It was not an adornment to her. She was composed of it.
All this seemed to amount to one simple thing—she did not perceive herself as a slave.
This fact disturbed me so greatly that the disturbance felt like anger. I could not wait to impress her condition upon her. Until she realized it, I did not think she would be marketable for anything like the sum I needed. Most concubine-seekers did not want grave girls whose lives turned inward; they wanted bright, vivacious girls who strove to please. Her quietude would be mistaken for sulkiness. Only merchants dealing in rarities would bid for her, and at prices low enough to compensate for their risk.
I saw a chance for my first stroke when Mustapha spoke to me in Arabic.
“Marco my son, you may have to hold her some weeks before you can make proper disposition of her,” he said, unable to conceal his anxiety. “Selling her is a dreadful thing to contemplate. At least you must deal only with the most honorable and humanitarian traders.”
“I must sell her within a fortnight,” I answered. “If she tries hard enough, she can please her master and have a good life. She’s intelligent and accomplished and her face could be quite beautiful if she’d brighten it up.”
“Could be? It is! I hold her one of the most beautiful maidens I’ve ever seen.” Mustapha Sheik tugged at his beard. “And what provision can we make for her creature comforts while she’s with us?”
“Why, we don’t need to make any. Simon and his family spoiled her, but the sooner she discovers she’s a slave, the better for her, so she’ll make an effort to please. As for food, she can have our leavings.”
“I wouldn’t hear of it, Marco. Nor do I think it wise to have her share with Hosain and Dasa.” These were Mustapha’s body servants. “No, it would be most unwise. Hosain is young and lusty and like so many Arabs, lacks self-control. She must have a place at our table.”
“Sooner or later she must learn——”
“She’ll drink no bitter cup within my house, if I can spare her! The child has had more than life’s fair share already, and how many more troubles to come? For that little while, her beauty will grace our board. It will be like sunlight through a casement of stained glass in the bleak of winter.”
“If it pleases you,” I answered, impressed by his nobility as much as touched by his childish ardor.
“And what shall we provide her in the way of a couch?” Mustapha asked.
“She can make her bed on the floor of my room. There are plenty of carpets.”
Mustapha Sheik made no immediate reply. I had a hard time remaining silent when I saw the real distress in his face, but my heart had strangely hardened. . . .
“Marco my son, I consider that most unwise. If you are going to sell this maiden, not keep her for your own, you must protect her against yourself as well as from others. Thereby she will bring a far better price and be in higher repute with her purchaser.”
“She’ll take no harm from me. I’ll warrant that.”
“An angel incarnate couldn’t warrant it. For a young, lusty man to sleep in the same room with a pretty unkindred maiden is to challenge Kismet. If she is already in his temporal power, as in this case, Kismet would decline the challenge as unworthy of his steel.”
I had never known Mustapha to employ in a light way the name of Allah or of Mohammed. Usually he spoke of Kismet no more solemnly than most Christians speak of Fate. However, there was an earnestness in his eyes at odds with his humor.